


Fool's Gold

by Repat (5n4fu)



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Violence, Post-Canon, Tooth Trauma, no beta we die like repatriates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29680260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5n4fu/pseuds/Repat
Summary: After being sprung from the Beach, Higgs has to turn over a new leaf whether he likes it or not. Step one: getting used to being a (mostly) regular guy again. Step two: ...Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.Or, "Local bastard forced to do community service, offended he has to experience consequences for his actions."Or, "I ruin Higgs's day for no good reason."
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	Fool's Gold

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a purely humorous 'what-if' scenario to satisfy my desire to torture Higgs in extremely mundane ways, but now it's trying to grow some semblance of a plot. Tags and notes subject to change if I decide to tack more onto this.

Even though the thin clouds, the moon had been bright enough—and the terrain flat enough—to drive all night through. He’d had to stop a handful of times to manually switch over the battery packs, but otherwise things couldn’t have gone smoother. Passing through this part of the country always felt a little like he imagined a sea voyage would feel: endless water and endless sky and him caught between them, a speck of nothing in his fragile little vessel. It made him feel small, but not in a bad way. In a simple way, maybe.

Now the sun was rising in a white blur, rays scattered by miles of chiral clouds but still hot enough to simmer in the air. His truck roared steady over rocks and spats of dry grass, trailing dust like a banner. He drove one-handed, other arm resting halfway out the window, glove temporarily in his lap so the wind could weave through his fingers.

Higgs liked the quiet. Out here he didn’t have to think about anything. Out here it didn’t matter what he knew or who knew him, didn’t matter what anyone saw when they looked at him. If there was no one to see him, his face never felt naked.

Of course, the cargo stashed in the back had somewhere to be. Couldn’t just drive forever. And anyway, he was tired—throat parched like he’d been swallowing half of that dust his tires kicked up, foot starting to drift a little against the accelerator, too light or too heavy. The last leg of the journey would be the hardest: mountains or MULE territory, pick your poison.

He kept the truck straight. The MULEs' sensor poles would be about a mile out, by his estimation; enough time to stop, replace another battery pack, and then take that last bit as fast as the truck’s engine could handle. Skip right through them and pull into the South distribution center in time for lunch.

Probably. Hopefully.

The sight of the sensor poles winking yellow in the distance woke him up a little, and he roused himself enough to flutter the brakes, coasting the truck noisily to a stop. Higgs hopped out, stomping some of the sleep-static from his legs and tugging his glove back on as he did. The last of the truck’s batteries had a little juice left, despite the dashboard indicator, so he left it. Its would-be replacement he locked in place in the next berth over. After this, he was out–if this last battery didn’t get his truck to the distro center he’d have to pack up and walk.

That wasn’t ideal. He’d found this truck abandoned by the side of a defunct highway, fixed it up himself, and he’d be damned if he was going to abandon it to a pack of MULEs. Idiots would probably run it straight into the ground in a week.

He took one last look at the cargo: two large crates riddled with tiny airholes and plastered with warning labels that read CAUTION and DO NOT SUBMERGE. They were buckled tightly in place to avoid too much jostling.

He dug something out of the back of the truck before returning to the driver’s seat. The truck switched back on with a purr, battery indicator swinging up as the lights blinked on.

Time to move.

The sensor poles flared at his approach, orange and then red as he passed over them. A moment later he heard the scanner ping. _Here we go_.

The MULE camp was visible from here, white outbuildings against red dust. They were already piling into their own vehicles.

Higgs leaned forward a little, easing down the accelerator. His truck didn’t have much get-up-and-go, so he had to count on a head start and some defensive driving.

Three MULE trucks veered across his tracks, cutting their own prints into the dirt and laying heavy on the horns. “Assholes,” Higgs muttered. “Yeah, I fucking see you.” He’d love to tell them they didn’t want what he was carrying, but hell, these were MULEs. They’d hijack a shipment of fresh shit if it had a cargo tag on it.

Meanwhile, Higgs had his pride and his job on the line.

He caught a flash of movement in the rearview and jerked the steering wheel just in time. His truck turned, skidding on loose dirt as the space it just occupied cracked with blue-white lightning. MULEs and their goddamn spears.

Just as fast, he spun the wheel the other way. The engine roared, already pushing as hard as it could, suspension creaking as he executed a hard right that dodged another three spears. Rocks pinged the undercarriage like little chimes.

“Shit _shit_ motherfucking…” He could see the distro center now, an angular shape cutting over the horizon. He slapped a hand to the pouch at his hip, driving one-handed again with his knuckles bone-white over the steering wheel. _C’mon…there we go_. Shock grenade. He pulled the pin with his teeth and chucked it out the window without looking.

 _One…two_ … FWOOM. The flash blotted out everything in the rearview for a second. When it faded the MULEs were one vehicle down, the third veering off to beach itself against the rocks.

He had a second grenade already standing by, grinning fiercely around the pin between his teeth, tasting iron. _C’mon, wanna play? Let’s play_. Motherfuckers thought they could steal from him, they had another thing coming. He’d never lost a single piece of cargo to MULEs and he wasn’t about to start now.

The wind sweeping in through the front window was hot and full of grit. The terrain out here was one long scree of broken rock, tires crunching over it like a thousand sets of chewing teeth. The next car pulled alongside, engine whining, and from one sideways glance Higgs could see just how hard the driver was concentrating to keep that rickety machine running in a straight line. He could feel his own truck’s tires sliding, too, the whole rig vibrating so strongly it touched numbing fingers along his arms.

“Whoops,” Higgs said, pulling the pin and tossing the grenade into the passenger’s lap.

The MULE shouted and Higgs veered away from the flash. “Get _fucked_ , y—”

The next flash came from his own truck, electricity sparking against his gloves. Every light on the dash went dark at once.

“Fuck!” Higgs snarled. _The third car_. Where—?

There. They were circling around, one of the passengers readying a second spear. Unnecessary, and a bit overkill, too—his truck was already dead, coasting forward at top speed with the engine silent beneath the hood.

He was losing ground. He’d have to get out and defend his cargo on foot until the truck finished its power cycle.

The earth this close to the distro center was scored by deep fissures, like whipmarks from a vengeful god. Higgs caught sight of one and made a knee-jerk decision. A Bridges-issue truck would have been crippled—no power, no steering—but this junker was old-school and still just a little big analog. Higgs spun the wheel and it leaned a hard left, suspension rattling even as the vehicle slowed, aiming for a snatch of shadow barely wider than the truck itself. 

Into the ravine, stone walls swiping what was left of the paint off the driver's side door. If he was poetically-inclined, he might have called the interior _idyllic_ : rock rising in sheer curves on either side, grass growing lush and wild under the glancing, indirect sunlight that fell through the crack above. A stream babbling softly nearby. The sighing of the wind.

And the grinding of one shitty shorted-out secondhand pile of junk as it rolled painfully to a stop, so close to the rock walls on either side Higgs could barely open his doors. If they tried following him in, the narrowness of the gorge would bottleneck them. No fancy flanking maneuv—

The last truck swept in after him and, without so much as a blink of its brake lights, plowed directly into the ass-end of his truck.

The impact threw him face-first into the dashboard. He bounced back just as fast, spitting like a cat, and snatched the assault rifle from the passenger seat. It was loaded with rubber bullets, tragically non-lethal, but at close range you could still put a man’s eye out with one. Silver linings.

He clawed his way over the dashboard and onto the hood of his truck, swearing a blue streak under his breath. A year ago, he could have swatted these men like flies. For an instant part of him even tried, groping around in the dark of his skull for a set of muscles he no longer had. Vanish. Move, fluid as water, through the space between this world and the next. Score a knife across their throats without missing a step.

Things changed. A year ago he didn’t need a toy gun or a junker car or a list of orders, and he didn’t have the weight of these cufflinks wearing the skin from his wrist. Didn’t have to see it glowing pale blue in the dark when he was trying—and failing—to sleep. It shifted and clinked with each movement, a tiny steel song that went _you’re caught you’re caught you’re caught_. He was an animal in a trap. If he thought too much about it he wanted to rip his arm apart with his teeth just to get it off.

But it was the price he’d paid for freedom from an even worse trap. The cufflinks clinked heavily as he dropped into a crouch in front of his truck’s dead headlights, the device no doubt logging the rapid stomp of his heartrate as he considered. The risks were irrelevant; what were they gonna do, kill him? Like he could be so lucky. Losing the cargo, though, that was another story.

Right, then. He flattened himself down and squirmed under the truck, noticing in an offhand sort of way that he was dripping blood into the dust from somewhere. The undercarriage of the truck was still hot and sparking, singeing the timefall-resistant fabric against his back. It stank like burning plastic.

The MULEs climbed out of their own truck. Higgs watched their boots circle around his tires, footsteps slow as the idiot mouth-breathers struggled to walk _and_ talk simultaneously.

“Think he ran for it?”

“I didn’t see him…maybe he—?”

A pause as knees bent and feet shuffled. A face appeared in the thin space between ground and car.

“Hey,” Higgs said, flashing his most charming smile, and then emptied half the clip into the man’s pearly whites.

The man’s front teeth exploded like white glass. He threw himself back, scrambling away from the truck spitting blood and shards of enamel into the dirt.

Higgs shot the next man in the ankles and, when stumbled and fell, delivered the last few rounds right to his temple. The man collapsed bonelessly—unconscious, and maybe the luckier of the two for it.

Mr. Fucked-Up-Teeth, on the other hand, was still wide awake. He hurled both hands up as Higgs crawled out from under the car.

"Didn't your parents teach you to keep your hands to yourself?" Higgs said, reloading. "Out here stealing regular working joes' cargo…" He shook his head. "For _shame_."

The man flinched a little as Higgs approached. That was gratifying to see, but all Higgs did was strip the cargo case from his shoulder to examine. A little bundle of metals—it would do. He only had so many of these stupid rubber bullets.

He patted the man on the head. "There, there. Teeth can be fixed," he said, voice low and soothing. He smiled at the man but it vanished almost as soon as it crossed his face; his heart was still thumping in that hard, deliberate way that cried for blood—and not his own, which he could still taste sharp on his tongue.

The MULEs had created a bit of a traffic jam in the ravine. The next man coming to investigate had to climb over the back of their vehicle, and the second his head popped over the roof, Higgs chucked the cargo case at him as hard as he could.

 _Thunk_. Hole in one! Well, not hole—luckily for him. Crack, maybe. Figure of speech. The guy collapsed into the tangle of his unseen friends, all of them cursing and babbling.

"I got more where that came from!" Higgs hollered. "This delivery ain't timed, I can do this all goddamned day!"

Silence. It felt a little sulky.

"Or you can just move your truck, let me out, and maybe take your buddies here to a doctor, because they, ah…" He nudged the unconcious man with the toe of one dusty boot. "Well, let's just say they're both missing shit that don't grow back." Teeth for the one, brain cells for the other. Not that he probably had many to spare in the first place.

The MULEs argued amongst themselves for a minute. Then someone shouted back: "Alright, we move the truck and leave, and you get the hell out of here, yeah?"

"Getting the hell out of here would be my absolute pleasure."

The next MULE that climbed mincingly over the back of the truck got only a sarcastic little wriggle of Higgs's fingers. She slid into the driver's seat, eyes flickering warily between him and the dashboard, and started the truck.

The MULE truck eased back with a crunch. Higgs winced. He circled around to check the damage, gun raised and pointed in the direction of the others without looking, barrel following the pack as they sidled by to collect their fallen friends.

Higgs's truck was down one tail-light and the rear bumper's frame now bore a distinctly vehicle-shaped divot. "Why the fuck would you ram a car full of cargo?" he asked them. "The point is to _get_ the cargo, not atomize it."

The MULEs didn't answer.

The cargo itself was on the other side of the trunk now, knocked loose by the impact and resting against the back of the driver's seat. Peering in, Higgs thought he saw a gap along the corner of one case—cracked. "Shit."

He ought to turn around and finish what he started. The last MULEs were still shuffling out of the ravine carrying two unconscious bodies and propping up a third man who drooled blood into the dirt like a mad dog; one lobbed stun grenade would do the job. Easy-peasy. And once they were out, well…Higgs's truck would be ready to roll again by now. There was nothing a proper assault rifle could do that several thousand pounds of rolling alloys couldn't.

It would be so easy.

He watched them go, letting out a slow breath between his teeth. Self-defense was one thing, but if Fragile thought he killed these people on purpose…

When he closed his eyes he could still hear the Beach. That endless hush of the waves. A heartbeat with no beginning and no end. He'd been there too long; part of it lived in the center of his head now, a little pool of seawater where strange fish swam. A shard of the Beach embedded in him forever.

He wasn't going back there, not ever.

The MULES vanished from sight and he climbed halfway into the truck bed to examine the cargo more closely. The bands around them were a dull orange and, yep, that was a crack running right along the corner of the bigger case, wide enough that he could dig a finger inside if he felt inclined.

He didn't, though. Something dark was boiling out of it, grains of black sand moving against gravity. It took him a second to remember what was in the package.

LIVE ANTS, 10KG.

 _“Motherf–!”_ Higgs leaped out of the truck, slapping at his clothes like a man putting out a fire. “Fucking! Shit! Fuck!” Ants fell to the dirt in a shower. His skin (or something) was crawling. Jesus, they just kept _coming_ , and he’d only been in there for a second. When he flipped open the broken cargo case–cutting through the tape with unnecessary savagery–the containers inside looked nearly empty. Pristine and antless. Where the hell did the rest of them go?

Higgs circled around to the driver’s seat, still shaking stray ants off his hands. He figured out where the rest had gone the moment he opened the door.

Several lines of ants were already trundling across the dashboard, brave explorers mapping a new land. Higgs almost slammed the door shut right then and there—let the fucking MULEs have it after all. Get themselves a couple million new buddies.

But only the one piece of cargo looked broken, and a man still needed to eat. Higgs paused to kick one of the tires, savagely, imagining a MULE’s face in its place. Then he climbed into the truck, slamming the door so aggressively the whole vehicle rocked with the impact. He had to brush a dozen ants off his seat just to sit down at the wheel.

"This is some _bullshit_ ," he muttered, punching the ignition. Something crawled distressingly along his neck. "I'm gonna kill 'em. I'm gonna _fucking_ kill 'em."

But the MULES were nowhere to be found when he backed out of the ravine, leaving him idling under the morning sun like the last man on earth.

Which, of course, meant no immediate vengeance for the plague of ants unleashed upon his truck. He punched the dashboard several times in rapid succession, growling under his breath like a rabid dog, and then he lowered his forehead to thump gently against the steering wheel.

The horn blared. Stubbornly ignoring the sound, he sat very still for what might have been a full minute, watching each hot breath fog the dashboard indicators. His head was still ringing like a struck bell; careful prodding with his tongue revealed a split lip as well, still sluggishly oozing blood by the taste.

"Fucking _ants_ ,” he said. “Why on _god's green earth_ does anyone need _ten pounds_ of _live ants_."

Wait, no. Two containers, both about five kilograms, so that was more like twenty pounds of ants. At least half of which has flown the proverbial coop.

He sat up and spun the wheel, pointing the truck toward its destination. "Sonofabitch who ordered this is getting twenty pounds of my _boot_ up their fucking ass." That didn't make a lot of sense, but whatever.

He drove the rest of the way to the South distro center in a haze that was likely one-part concussion and three-parts pure venom-spitting fury. That left zero room for itching, which was something of a relief.

It was well past lunch when he rolled in, moving a little faster than usual and hammering the horn so fast and loud it drowned out the distro center's welcome announcement.

The elevator was blocked by someone's trike and Higgs screeched the truck to a haphazard stop just shy of the warning lights, the whole rig rocking on its suspension. He jumped out and made a beeline for the terminal, almost body-checking the poor porter emerging from the private quarters below. “Walk it back, chief,” Higgs growled, swiping past him and making a sharp little running-man gesture with one hand. “I need this terminal more than you right now, _believe_ me. Be a good boy and wait your turn."

The other porter stepped forward in protest and Higgs shot him a sideways glance that froze him in place. From his one-foot height advantage he watched the porter consider saying something and then think better of it.

Smart, really. Higgs activated the terminal and Southerland’s chiralgram winked into view.

Higgs cut him off before he could open his mouth. “Who the _fuck_ ordered all the ants?"

From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the other porter’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline.

"…That…would be me," Southerland said. "Why, did something go wrong with the order?"

Higgs felt his face split into a grin that wasn't friendly at all. "You could say that," he said. “I've got one case for you, but if you want the rest, you're gonna need to invest in some traps or something. I got about half of them in my fucking pants right now and the rest are loose in the, ah… _rolling anthill_ that used to be my truck. I’d _really_ appreciate it if you explained why you needed ‘em.” Still smiling. His face hurt a little.

For some reason, Southerland didn’t look very soothed by the smile.

Once he'd shouted Southerland down enough to feel a little better, Higgs checked into a private room and took the longest goddamn shower of his life. It took almost twenty minutes of scrubbing before each stray drop stopped feeling like another ant creeping over his skin.

Then, dried and dressed, he collapsed into bed to stare at the ceiling.

He was fine during the day. When he was out and moving, when he had something else to focus on. But when the lights dimmed and it was just him and the quiet…

Higgs threw an arm over his eyes, blocking out the room. He'd always hated these Bridges facilities. They were so cold, so _sterile_. How could anyone live like this?

Of course, he asked that question about a lot of things. Most people, in his estimation, lived purely out of habit. Everyone just going through the motions until their time ran out. It always ran out faster than they expected.

Higgs's cufflinks chimed. He heaved a sigh and answered without looking—who _else_ would be calling him?

"Fragile. I'm tryin' to sleep, you know."

"Poor thing," she said, not sounding sympathetic at all.

"Did Southerland call you whining about one of your employees?" Figured, the goddamn weasel.

Fragile sighed. "Southerland? No. What did you do?"

"Oh, it's _always_ something _I_ did, isn't it?"

"Historically, yes. But I don't suppose it matters right now. I have a job for you—how fast do you think you can get to Capital Knot?"

Higgs moved the arm off his face to look at the cufflinks. "Capital Knot?" He squinted in the light from the display, studying the interface. He wished they showed more than a still image—it was hard to tell what the hell Fragile meant from tone alone. She was joking, right? "For what possible reason would I want to walk into Bridges HQ?"

Fragile snorted. "It's not about what you want, Higgs, you know that. This is about our deal. You can make yourself useful, or you can go back to the Beach. It’s your call.”

 _Some fucking deal_. Even now he could hear waves lapping at the edge of his memory, a siren song that twisted his gut. A year had passed outside while he sat by that endless sea, writing meaningless screes in the sand, listening to nothing. _It’s your call_ , she said, like she didn’t already know his answer.

 _I should have killed you,_ he wanted to say. He felt the words heavy in his throat like rocks, but he didn't say them. Couldn't. It didn't matter anymore, anyway; he should have done a lot of things and didn't, and now trying to fix any of it was catching smoke in his hands. Everything slipped away.

The silence stretched brittle as spun glass. Fragile let it lie, patient as always.

“What’s the job?” Higgs said finally.

“It’s from Die-Hardman himself. Even I don’t know the details yet.”

Shock boiled the rage from his blood. “Wait a goddamn minute, Fragile. It almost sounds like you’re trying to put me and _our esteemed leader_ in the same room, but I know you ain't _that_ stupid.”

“He has guards,” she said, voice mild.

He recognized it as her trying-to-get-a-rise-out-of-him tone. “But you didn’t tell him, did you? There’s no way—”

“Of _course_ I didn’t. As far as Bridges and the UCA are concerned, Higgs died on the Beach. He’ll be meeting with Peter Englert, repatriate and loyal Fragile Express employee.”

No video on the cufflinks, but he could hear her smiling. Smug bitch. “And you don’t think anyone’s gonna cotton on?”

"Why would they? Very few Bridges people can say they've even heard Higgs speak, let alone seen his face without a mask."

Higgs grimaced. His _face_. Like he needed the reminder that he'd lost his mask on top of everything else. These days he felt naked more often than not, _flayed_ , even, the exposed skin of his cheeks constantly chapped by wind he wasn't used to feeling. It was psychosomatic. Avoid touch long enough and even the suggestion of it becomes unendurable.

 _"The terrorist Higgs was known for that mask,"_ Fragile had said when she pulled him off the Beach. _"No mask at all is the best disguise for you now."_

She was right and he hated it. Hated it so much he had half a mind to jump off this Bridges-issue bed and destroy everything he could get his hands on—smash the shelves, kick that little hideaway toilet off its track, put a boot through the shower's tempered glass and a fist through the mirror.

Instead he sighed, the sound a growl in his throat, and said, "Sure, fine, guess I'll just haul my ass east then. Not like I have anything better to do."

Rage was always fighting exhaustion in his chest, twin dogs tearing each other apart with aching teeth. Today exhaustion won, pinning rage beneath its wiry frame, holding it down with jaws at its throat until there was no breath left in it.

"Good," Fragile replied brightly. "I'll see you there."

Call ended. Higgs tugged reflexively at the edge of his cufflinks, twisting hard enough to drag sparks of pain across his wrist. The skin underneath was raw. The movement freed a single drop of blood and he watched it meander towards the inside of his elbow like—

Well. Like a wandering ant, actually. With a huff, Higgs turned on his side and curled against the dark. Fuck today, fuck Fragile, fuck Bridges, and _fuck the entire insect kingdom_.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time ever posting anything to a fic site, so please be gentle with me. Ideally this is the opening chapter to an actual series centering on something approximating a redemption arc, but I'm trying not to stress myself out about it too much, as I already have a major fic project (currently on covid hiatus) that's my baby. This would therefore be my chill-out, 'fuck around and find out' series.
> 
> Anyway, I welcome questions, comments, concerns, wild accusations, and complimentary gift baskets. I'm re-patriate on tumblr if that's what butters your biscuits.


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